when the French have indulged themselves with the plural noun of
adjective formation, _les nouvelles_, without feeling themselves
compelled to make _une nouvelle_ a part of their language?

Why may we not form a plural noun _news_ from _new_, to express the same
idea which in Latin is expressed by _nova_, and in French by _les
nouvelles_?

Why may not goods be a plural noun formed from the adjective _good_,
exactly as the Romans formed _bona_ and the Germans have formed _Güter_?

Why does MR. HICKSON compel us to treat goods as singular, and make us
go back to the Gothic? Does he say that _die Güter_, the German for
_goods_ or _possessions_, is singular? Why too must riches be singular,
and be the French word _richesse_ imported into our language? Why may we
not have a plural noun _riches_, as the Romans had _divitæ_, and the
Germans have _die Reichthumer_? and what if _riches_ be irregularly
formed from the adjective _rich_? Are there, MR. HICKSON, no
irregularities in the formation of a language? Is this really so?

If "from convenience or necessity" words are and may be imported from
foreign languages bodily into our own, why might not our forefathers,
feeling the convenience or necessity of having words corresponding to
_bona_, _nova_, _divitiæ_, have formed _goods_, _news_, _riches_, from
_good_, _new_, _rich_?

_News_ must be singular, says MR. HICKSON; but _means_ "is beyond all
dispute plural," for Shakspeare talks of "a mean:" with _news_, however,
there is the slight difficulty of the absence of the noun _new_ to start
from. Why is the absence of the singular an insuperable difficulty in